


Three Silences and the Story

by SaintSayaka



Category: Watership Down - Richard Adams
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, College, Dialogue Heavy, Library, M/M, Tumblr: otpprompts, horrah for obscure ships and gay rabbits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-21
Updated: 2016-05-21
Packaged: 2018-06-09 19:40:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6920392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaintSayaka/pseuds/SaintSayaka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hazel-rah is good at many things. Animal anatomy doesn't happen to be one of them. Fortunately, fellow student and night janitor Strawberry is. He's good at a lot of things, actually, including making Hazel weak at the knees. But what's he hiding?</p><p>Very light shipping. Based on the following from the Tumblr OTPPrompts: Imagine Person A being a college janitor and always being around to help Person B with their studies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three Silences and the Story

Twenty shining statues from the debate club, a ribbon or two for excellence in intramural sports, and the comfy sheathe of being the three-year, consecutively elected student council president. In every respect, Hazel-rah was the star student of Down University, and probably the force behind seventy five percent of the state school's funding.

And yet, he could not remember what the hell a dewlap was.

“It’s the bit of skin under a female rabbit’s chin, see?” Strawberry pushed up his glasses and pointed at the diagram for what Hazel could have sworn was the thousandth time that night. “Female does use it to…”

“Pull fur from when they’re making a nest for their kits. Right, right, right.”

“Remembering now?” He wore a smile that could have put Frith’s sun to shame. Hazel flushed slightly and turned his attention back the graph.

“Yes, exactly,” Strawberry continued, beaming, “and a large one can be very dangerous, because it can prevent a rabbit from grooming themselves. There's an old story told in long lost warrens about a doe named Simmered Dew whose dewlap once eclipsed the sun...”

For the second time that night, Hazel cut him off, even though he would have much enjoyed to indulge in a fairy tale. “Strawberry, how exactly do you know all of this? Aren’t you an architecture major?”

He shrugged, leaning his body against the mop that he had just removed from the pail. “I used to own them, back home. Had my own little hutch and everything.” His voice trailed off slightly, like it always did when he spoke of home. Nobody seemed to notice; perhaps not even Strawberry, himself. Hazel always did. “Anyway, I figured I owed it to my pets to know everything about them.”

“Very noble of you.”

Strawberry laughed, beginning to mop the marble floor. His previous sadness was instantly abandoned. “Yes, well, I suppose it’s my nature.”

Hazel stared. “May I ask you another question?”

His back was turned as the mop made its way between a line of books. There were no windows, but judging by the lack of other university students and the bags forming under his eyes, Hazel wagered that it was about two AM inside the library. Time flowed so strangely when he was in here. He wondered how much Strawberry had to do with that, but then immediately dismissed his inquiry.

Strawberry called out to him, putting an immediate halt to his thoughts. “I don’t see why not. Isn’t that what we’ve been doing all night?”

“Well, it’s not about rabbits.”

“Really, now? That’s a shame. ‘Exotic Veterinary’ is one of my favorite electives. But go on.”

“Why exactly did you take a janitorial job here?”

“Well, that’s easy.” He poked his head out from the stacks, giving the illusion to the tired Hazel that he was no more a disembodied head. He could make more sense of that then he could of a horribly complex diagram of the rabbit’s digestive system, which he had made the mistake of flipping his page to. “I needed the money, and the job was directly on campus. How else was I going to pay for classes?”

This was true. While he had never revealed the exact number of electives he had taken upon himself to accept, Hazel had seen glimpses of the night janitor’s daytime binders with tabs ranging from courses in women’s lib to the history of modern kayaking. Still, the facts did not line up.

“If you have that many classes, how come you have a job that forces you to work nearly every night?”

His head disappeared. “It was the only job I could take,” he replied cheerily. “I couldn’t find anything better.”

“Surely that can’t be true. Not with your intellect.”

There was a moment of brief silence, disrupting the kinematic nature of their conversation. “You’d be surprised,” Strawberry finally replied.

“It’s because you don’t have anywhere to go, right?”

Another silence introduced the frank truth into the room, but this one was different from the former. This one was heavier, darker. Hazel almost regretted saying it, but his sense of concern was bowled over by his curiosity. Such was his nature.

“What do you mean?” Strawberry stayed put behind the shelves.

“You never talk about going home, even around breaks. You don’t have a dorm. And you sleep an awful lot over your books in the daytime. Cleaning the library at night not only gives you a little time to study, but an excuse to stay overnight.”

Strawberry quietly withdrew from hiding. His glasses were slightly foggy, but otherwise, he appeared rather composed. An unknown book stuck out from under his arm, old and worn. The two stared at one another, relishing in the third and final silence of their night together. 

“Let’s not talk about this.”

“Strawberry…”

“Not tonight. You have to study. I’m not mad,” he added at the sight of Hazel’s wrinkled nose, “just concerned about your GPA.”

“Don’t worry about that.”

“No, Hazel-rah, I think I will.” He removed the book from under his shoulder, and placed it on Hazel’s lap. “One Thousand Tales About Lapine” started back at him in gilded letters. “You learn better when things are in stories, right? Well, then, let it teach you better than I ever could.”

“Strawberry, please, wait. Let’s talk this out.”

“No, Hazel,” he said for the second time, dropping the honorific. “Your studies come first. But don’t worry. Tomorrow, after your exam, I will have another story for you. I promise.”

And as he leaned down and kissed Hazel on the head, every fiber in the young students’ being very much wanted that story - whether it was being heard, or being told.

**Author's Note:**

> Haha, get it, WaterSHIP Down?
> 
> _richard adams would hate me_


End file.
